The dawn light was cold and gray, doing nothing to dispel the chill that had settled in Elias's bones. It wasn't from the mountain air. It was from Aris's words.
We're making the monsters evolve.
He stood before the Genesis Seed, the Settlement interface burning in his mind. The quest timer read 18:22:14. They had survived the night, but the price of that survival was now clear. The Mana Nexus they'd created was a pressure cooker, forcing adaptation at a terrifying speed. They weren't just holding a fort; they were cultivating a garden of predators.
"How long?" he asked Aris, his voice flat.
"Based on the rate of energy absorption and mutational feedback… if the pattern holds, we could see Level 5 or 6 threats by tonight. Possibly a mini-boss class entity by the final hours of the quest." She was back in scientist mode, the fear packed away behind data. It was how she coped.
"We can't fight Level 6s," Leo said, stating the obvious. He was sharpening his machete on a stone, the rhythmic scrape-scrape a grim soundtrack. "Not with axes and Molotovs. We need better tools. Or a better wall."
Elias looked at their pathetic defenses. The single, beautiful segment of System-grown palisade, and the jumbled, broken mess of crate-wood and desperation that made up the rest. It had stopped Level 2s. Level 4s would smash through it like paper.
"We need resources," Elias said. "Real ones. Wood. Stone. The System will let us build with them cheaply. We have to gather."
"You said sending people out was suicide," Lena reminded him. She was sipping water from a canteen, her hands steady now.
"It is. But waiting here for Level 6s to show up is a slower, more certain suicide." He turned to the group. "New plan. We don't go far. We strip this immediate area. Every fallen branch, every loose rock within twenty yards of the perimeter. We work in pairs. One gathers, one guards. No one is ever alone. No one goes past the tree line. Understood?"
They nodded. The night had forged a unit. Fear was still there, but it was a shared fuel now.
The next few hours were backbreaking, terrifying work. Elias, with his wounded leg, partnered with Sam. The boy was preternaturally aware, his eyes constantly scanning the woods as Elias used a crowbar to lever moss-covered stones from the ground. They rolled them to the perimeter, where Leo and Sarah stacked them into a low, crude foundation for a future wall.
Lena and Aris worked together, dragging every sizable fallen limb they could find. The forest floor was a treasure trove of deadfall, and soon they had a growing pile of timber.
As they worked, Elias kept one eye on the Settlement interface. The Basic Wood and Basic Stone counters ticked up slowly: Wood: 47. Stone: 23.
It wasn't enough. He pulled up the construction options.
[Basic Wooden Palisade (10m segment): Cost 50 Wood, 5 Mana.]
[Reinforced Wooden Gate: Cost 80 Wood, 10 Stone, 10 Mana.]
[Simple Watchtower (Scaffold): Cost 30 Wood, 15 Mana.]
The Mana they had was slowly regenerating, now at 15. But the material costs were the bottleneck.
"It's not fast enough," Leo grunted, heaving another stone into place. "At this rate, we'll have one new wall segment by nightfall. We need a dozen."
Elias knew he was right. His mind raced, scanning the chronicle of his memories for solutions. There had been a technique, used in the second year when metal was scarce… a way to treat wood with alchemical resins to harden it. But he had no resins, no alchemist.
Then he remembered something else. Simpler. From the very early days.
"The van," he said suddenly.
"We're already cannibalizing the interior," Leo said.
"Not the interior. The frame. The chassis. The engine block."
Leo stared at him. "You want to use the engine as building material?"
"It's high-grade steel. Dense. Heavy. The System might categorize it as 'Refined Metal,' a tier above basic stone. Even a little could reinforce a weak point." He looked at the hollow, rusted shell of the vehicle. "We break it down. We offer it to the Settlement interface as a resource donation."
It was a desperate gamble. But Leo's eyes lit with a mechanic's insane glee. "You want to scrap my FedEx van? Okay, Commander. But you're helping."
They descended on the van with a savage purpose. Using the sledgehammer, the crowbar, and Leo's intimate knowledge of its weak points, they began dismantling it. It was loud, brutal work. Metal shrieked and groaned. They peeled away the sheet metal siding. They disconnected the heavy diesel engine from its mounts.
With each major component they dragged to the perimeter—the engine block, the rear axle, piles of torn steel—Elias focused on the interface.
[Donate Salvaged Resources to Settlement Core?]
[Refined Metal Detected: 125 Units.]
[Basic Metal Detected: 89 Units.]
"Yes!" Leo hissed, seeing the numbers flash in his own vision as a Citizen. The System was accepting it.
Elias immediately allocated the resources. He didn't build a new wall. He selected the long, vulnerable stretch of crate-and-pallet barricade.
[Reinforce Existing Defensive Structure.]
[Cost: 80 Refined Metal, 20 Wood, 10 Mana.]
[Effect: Basic Barricade upgraded to 'Reinforced Metal-Weave Barrier.' Durability +300%.]
The air over the shabby pile of wood hummed. The donated chunks of van frame and siding glowed, then melted into a silvery liquid that flowed like mercury over the wooden barrier. It coated and seeped into the wood, binding it together, sheathing it in a thin, incredibly tough skin of alloy. When the light faded, they were left with a wall that looked like wood fused with polished steel. It was seamless. Strong.
"Now we're talking," Leo said, rapping his knuckles on it. It sounded solid, like a safe door.
Aris's tablet chimed a warning. She looked up, her face tense. "Signatures. Two of them. Level 4. They're not circling anymore. They're approaching. Fast. From the north."
"Positions!" Elias yelled. "Leo, left of the new wall! Sam, to the outcrop! Lena, Aris, Sarah—get Mia behind the Seed, use the cliff!"
They scrambled. Elias took a position at the right end of the reinforced wall, axe ready. His heart hammered. Level 4. This would be different.
The creatures burst from the tree line not with a skitter, but with a ground-shaking thump. They were massive. As big as bears, but built like prehistoric boars, with lumpy, gray hide that looked like granite. Tusks like curved daggers protruded from their lower jaws. Their small, deep-set eyes glowed with a dull red light.
[Mana-Adapted Graniteback – Level 4]
They didn't hesitate. They charged straight for the new, shiny wall, as if offended by it.
The first one hit the reinforced barrier at full speed.
BOOM.
The impact was a cannon shot. The wall held, but the entire structure shuddered. Elias felt the vibration in his feet. The Graniteback snorted, shook its head, and backed up for another charge.
The second one went for the older, weaker section of crate-wood next to it. It lowered its head and plowed through. The wood exploded into splinters. It was inside the perimeter.
It turned, its red eyes locking on the huddled group by the cliff—on Mia, who let out a small, terrified whimper.
"NO!" Sarah screamed.
Leo was too far left. Elias was too far right.
Sam, from the outcrop, didn't shoot an arrow or throw a spear. He had neither. He did the only thing he could. He let out the loudest, most piercing, most un-Sam-like sound he could manage, a raw, wordless scream of pure defiance.
It wasn't a loud scream. But in Sam's silent world, he had learned to project from his diaphragm. It was a sharp, shocking sound in the tense air.
The Graniteback inside the perimeter flinched, its head swiveling towards the noise for a split second.
That split second was all Elias needed. He couldn't get to the beast in time. But he could use the wall.
He dropped his axe. He placed both hands on the cold, metal-weave surface of the reinforced barrier. He didn't try to manifest a weapon. He poured a memory into the structure itself. A memory of defiance. The memory of the unbreakable Gates of Chronos City holding against a Phalanx Siege-Behemoth. The feeling of NO made manifest in steel and stone.
[Chronicler Ability Activated: Memory Imprint – Fortification.]
[Paradox Integrity: 95.1%]
[Mana Cost: 8.]
The reinforced wall section in front of him didn't change shape. But for a moment, it shone with an inner, silvery light. The Graniteback outside, charging for a second impact, hit it.
This time, there was no boom. There was a crack, like a boulder splitting. The Graniteback's skull collided with the wall, and the wall did not give. The creature's own momentum worked against it. It stumbled back, dazed, a fracture visible in one of its stony tusks.
Leo saw his chance. He roared, a sound to match Sam's, and charged the dazed creature from the side. He didn't swing for the tough hide. He drove his machete like a spike into the beast's eye, sinking it to the hilt. The Graniteback let out a deafening bellow of agony and collapsed, thrashing.
The one inside the perimeter, distracted by Sam and now seeing its mate fall, turned its rage on the outcrop. It began to paw at the rock, trying to climb up to Sam.
"Sam, get down!" Elias yelled, grabbing his axe and running, his leg screaming in protest.
But Sam didn't get down. He looked at the creature, then at the pile of leftover van parts. His eyes narrowed. He pointed at a long, jagged piece of broken drive shaft, then at the creature below, then at Elias. A question.
Elias understood. "Do it!"
Sam grabbed the heavy, sharpened length of metal. He waited until the Graniteback reared up, placing its broad chest against the rock face. Then, with all his strength, he dropped the spear of steel, point down.
It was a perfect strike. The improvised spear, driven by gravity and Sam's aim, plunged into the soft spot at the base of the creature's neck where the stony plates met. The Graniteback convulsed once, then slid down the rock, dead.
Silence, again. Heavier this time. The smell of blood and earth was thick.
Two Level 4s. Dead. By a mechanic's desperate stab, a scout's improvised trap, and a wall that remembered being stronger.
Elias limped over to Sam, who was climbing down, his hands cut and bleeding from the sharp metal. He looked at the boy, then at the dead beast.
"Good thinking," he signed, his hands clumsy with fatigue.
Sam just nodded, his chest heaving. He looked at his hands, then at the spear, then at the wall Elias had touched. His eyes held a new understanding. Power wasn't just in muscles or magic. It was in using what you had.
Aris was already scanning. "The Nexus… the energy spike from the kills is significant. It's feeding the core." She looked at her tablet, then at Elias, dread dawning. "The acceleration… it just increased. The signatures on the edge of my range… they just jumped to Level 5."
Elias looked at the two massive corpses, then at the glowing Seed. They were watering their garden with blood. And the things growing in it were getting hungrier.
The quest timer read 15:41:08.
They had bought a few hours. At a terrible, compounding cost.